Learning English As A Foreign Language For Dummies Pdf 96

School and other educational institutions provide the main opportunity for the vast majority of people to learn languages, while linguistic diversity is actively encouraged within many other education establishments and workplaces. This article presents statistics on language learning in primary and secondary schools of the European Union (EU) Member States as well as EFTA and enlargement countries. It forms part of an online publication on education and training in the EU.

Learning English As A Foreign Language For Dummies Pdf 96

Within primary education, 84.1 % of pupils were learning English in 2020. Learning English is mandatory within primary education institutions in several EU Member States, and so a number of them have all or nearly all pupils learning this language already in primary education, as shown in Figure 1. Note that the relative importance of English as a foreign language may be further magnified because pupils tend to receive more instruction in their first foreign language than they do for any subsequent languages they study.

Within primary education, 5.5 % of pupils in the EU were learning French in 2020 and 3.4 % German. For both of these languages, Luxembourg reported the highest shares (83.2 % and 100.0 % respectively), as these are counted as foreign languages, despite being official languages.

Between 2013 and 2020, the share of primary school pupils in the EU learning at least two foreign languages increased from 1.3 % to 7.2 %. In percentage point terms, the biggest gains were recorded in Spain and Finland where the share increased by 14.4 and 13.7 percentage points respectively. This large increase in Spain, with the third largest number of primary school pupils in the EU (12.9 % of the EU total), contributed strongly to the increase observed for the EU as a whole. In Greece, the share of primary school pupils learning at least two foreign languages increased by 10.0 percentage points. Elsewhere, increases were more modest, not exceeding 4.2 percentage points. In seven Member States, the share of primary school pupils learning at least two foreign languages decreased, down less than 1.0 percentage points in all except Poland where it fell 7.3 percentage points.

The share of lower secondary school pupils in the EU who were learning English was already high in 2013 but was 1.7 percentage higher in 2020. Larger increases were observed for French (up 4.1 percentage points) and German(up 7.9 percentage points). The increase for Spanish was smaller, up 0.8 percentage points. Among the EU Member States, the largest changes between 2013 and 2020 in the share of lower secondary pupils learning specific languages were:

Among upper secondary pupils in the EU following a general programme, the share learning English was 95.7 %; among those following a vocational programme, the share was 79.2 %. In most EU Member States, the share of upper secondary students studying English as a foreign language was higher within general programmes than within vocational programmes.

Around one fifth of upper secondary students in the EU were learning German (20.0 %), French (18.9 %) or Spanish (18.0 %) as a foreign language in 2020. Note that the analysis for the EU Member States below excludes Ireland, for which data on learning German, French and Spanish are not available; it also partially excludes the Netherlands for which data on learning French and Spanish are not available.

The share of upper secondary pupils in the EU following a general programme that were learning German was 21.4 %, compared with 18.2 % for those following a vocational programme. In most EU Member States, the share of upper secondary students learning German as a foreign language was higher within general programmes than within vocational programmes. Only in Cyprus and Poland were the shares higher within vocational programmes than within general ones.

Between 2013 and 2020, the share of pupils in upper secondary education learning French as a foreign language fell in all but five of the 24 EU Member States for which data are available (France, not applicable; Ireland and the Netherlands, not available). The only exceptions were Poland, Belgium, Latvia and Croatia where the share of upper secondary pupils studying French increased, as well as Hungary where there was no change.

Between 2013 and 2020, the biggest decreases (in percentage point terms) in the share of upper secondary pupils learning at least two foreign languages were recorded in Cyprus (down 37.6 percentage points), Slovakia (down 23.3 percentage points), Estonia (down 14.8 percentage points) and Malta (down 11.1 percentage points). Smaller decreases (at most down 5.4 percentage points) were observed in six other Member States. Elsewhere, increases between 2013 and 2020 were less than 5.0 percentage points in most cases, with four exceptions. Increases of 5.8 percentage points were observed in Luxembourg and Hungary, while the increase in Croatia was 8.1 percentage points and that in Poland was 11.9 percentage points.

The share of upper secondary pupils studying two or more foreign languages confirms a more widespread learning of foreign languages within general programmes than within vocational ones. In 2020, 60.0 % of upper secondary pupils following general programmes in the EU were learning two or more foreign languages, compared with 35.1 % for pupils following vocational programmes.

Between 2013 and 2020, the share of upper secondary pupils following general programmes who were learning at least two foreign languages increased most in Hungary (up 28.8 percentage points) and Poland (up 12.2 percentage points). The largest decrease was observed for Cyprus, down 45.0 percentage points.

Poland also recorded a large increase in the share of upper secondary pupils following vocational programmes who were learning two or more foreign languages, up 11.9 percentage points between 2013 and 2020. Relatively large percentage point increases were also observed in Cyprus, Luxembourg and Latvia. The largest decreases, by far, were recorded in Slovakia (down 35.0 percentage points) and Estonia (down 39.7 percentage points).

The data refer to all pupils in primary and secondary education, even if teaching languages does not start in the first years of instruction for the particular ISCED level considered. The data refer to all modern spoken living languages that are taught as foreign languages. Each student studying a foreign language is counted once for each language they are studying. In other words, students studying more than one language are counted as many times as the number of languages studied.

The educational curriculum drawn up in each country defines the languages considered as foreign languages in that country and this definition is applied during data collection. Regional languages are included if they are considered as alternatives to foreign languages by the curriculum. Only foreign languages studied as compulsory subjects or as compulsory curriculum options are included. The study of languages when the subject is offered in addition to the minimum curriculum is not included. Non-nationals studying their native language in special classes or those studying the language(s) of the host country are excluded.

Learning a foreign language is considered as an important factor for participation in society: foreign languages can unite people, render other countries and their cultures accessible, and strengthen intercultural understanding. Poor or low levels of foreign language skills can cause businesses to lose international contracts, while also potentially hindering the mobility of skills and talent.

For several decades, it has been mandatory for most children in the EU to learn at least one foreign language during their compulsory education. In 2002, the Barcelona European Council recommended that at least two foreign languages should be taught to all pupils from a very early age.

A Council Recommendation on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages was adopted in May 2019, while a European Commission staff working document (SWD(2018) 174 final) provides some scientific and factual background to the Recommendation.

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In recent decades, research has revealed that reticence and anxiety can have a debilitating impact on second language (L2) learning (Horwitz et al., 1986; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991a; Tsui, 1996; Jackson, 2002a; Liu, 2006a; Liu & Jackson, 2008). It is widely agreed that reticent students often speak less and exhibit more negative forms of arousal (e.g. anxiety, tension, unpleasant effect), with speech that tends to be brief and less comprehensible. Likewise, high-anxious people are more reluctant to speak in L2 classroom activities and this often hinders their learning. Reticence and anxiety are complex constructs that stem from a range of linguistic, educational and cultural elements as well as personality attributes. This chapter reviews key research in this area before focusing on an investigation of factors that influenced the behaviour of students in oral English lessons at a university in Mainland China.